


devour

by ghoulgf



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (but the comfort is minimal), (surprisingly. trust me.), Angst, Cannibalism, Character Study, Existential Angst, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Slow Burn, Tenderness, Tension, akira kurusu is Fucked Up here, and he is not the only one, honestly horror is mostly existential in my opinion, i kno this sounds wack but i promise it's actually good, i promise u the cannibalism plot point is actually not what u think it is at least not fully, perfect for halloween!! aka today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27316096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgf/pseuds/ghoulgf
Summary: At fourteen, Akira Kurusu has his first kiss and finds himself unable to resist the urge to bite, tear, and taste.Two years later, not a moment has gone by without him being hungry.He’s not the only one.[aka: everything is the exact same, but akira just has some strange cravings.]
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	devour

**Author's Note:**

> as always with every fic i write, this one is vaguely inspired by a movie. specifically a french coming of age movie called raw, which is about a vegan college student who discovers her cannibalistic urges and yeah. i love the movie and i thought it was clever how her cannibalism coincided with her growing up and her sexual awakening, and i thought cannibalism is actually a neat concept that can be used as a metaphor for a lot of different things. so i wrote this.
> 
> i wouldn’t really label this horror. even tho there’s definitely a tw for gore it’s more that the gore is there as a vehicle for Plot and not the other way around. but there is a lot of existential horror imo
> 
> you should definitely listen to the [raw soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P74EdDaIAy0&ab_channel=popup) (also on spotify) as u read. if anything tho, at least listen to the [main theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuWQlI7ij8&ab_channel=Alix) for the second to last scene (starts with "He knows this could be a huge mistake.")

_“They have two types of starving people there. Starving people. ‘Hunger’ in English. ‘Little Hunger’ and ‘Great Hunger’. Little Hunger is a person who is literally hungry. And then there’s Great Hunger…”_

_- **Burning** (2018) _

* * *

The first kiss is widely considered to be a staple milestone of adolescence. Many teenagers have at least an idea of what they want their first kiss to be like. For some, it's the who that matters most. _It has to be Tomohiro_. Or, _I hope it's Momo_. Or perhaps just a silent prayer of _please be someone I think is really special_ to a god they haven't believed in for years. Others care more about what it's like - where it happens, how it happens, _oh god I hope I don't look ugly when it happens_.

Personally, Akira's never given his first kiss much thought. For the record, though, her name is Gin. She isn't who he prayed for, but then again, he hasn't prayed for a lot of things. Would everything be different if he had? Or was he still going to be thrown in the back of the family car with a too-loud engine and dropped off at the train station to be shipped off to Tokyo no matter what?

His mind shouldn't be wandering, not while there's a decently attractive girl sitting next to him in his bed trying her hardest to look interested in the mediocre action movie he dug up from his closet.

His parents aren't home tonight. He doesn't know where they are. One thing's certain: upon arrival, they'll throw around some thinly veiled insults about how they can no longer go anywhere without getting dirty looks from people who once flashed them smiles in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store. All because of their delinquent son and all the attention he just had to draw. Like it's his fault that this town is so starved for anything more than stillness that they'd carry his name in their mouths for weeks and chew him out until he doesn't sate their hunger any longer. As if he brought the local press coverage onto himself and not the pack of reporters lying in wait outside the courthouse, eager to swallow him whole.

Gin turns her head towards him, dark brown eyes regarding him with anticipation. "Are you enjoying the movie?"

"It sure is amusing," he answers. The film is bad. At least it's so bad that it's sort of good. Not really, though.

"Yeah. The special effects are funny." She giggles, and what a curious sound it is. Five hours earlier, he had no clue this girl even existed. Now they're reveling in the sheer awfulness of this movie together. It's strangely intimate.

"Never in my life have I seen these actors. Probably a good reason why." Akira meets her gaze. She's looking at him like she wants something from him and knows she can get it.

She seemed so confident back then too - that afternoon, at the school gate. Gin had approached him as he was leaving, promptly introduced herself, and her apparent long-time romantic affections towards him.

"I wasn't planning on confessing," she had said, "but since you're leaving next year..."

He was surprised that he found himself saying yes and even more so that she didn't follow up with, "Just kidding!" One could not blame his disbelief, however, considering he had spent all of middle school and three-fourths of his first year of high school practically invisible.

Now he was definitely visible, just in all the wrong ways. In hindsight, it was such an obvious fact of life that people will always be looking, yet it was one that he somehow forgot. It wasn't until the day after the news broke to the public and all eyes were on him in the school hallway that he finally became painfully aware of his body and the space it occupied at all times.

And how familiar he was with this revelation right now, seeing himself beheld in the eyes of another. 

"What?" The corner of Akira's lip quirks up. "Like what you see?"

"I thought I made that clear over dinner," she replies. She had insisted they stay on the same side of the booth, and during their lovely chat over sushi, her hand became well-acquainted with his thigh.

"I'm no good at reading vague signals, you know." 

"I guess I'll have to make myself clearer." She turns her body towards him, placing a manicured hand on his chest. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," he says, with uncanny confidence for a man who's never been kissed and has zero romantic interest in the person who's asking.

She grabs onto his black shirt, and in an instant, her lips are on his. 

There are no fireworks or the unmaking and remaking of the world. It's only... moist, due in part to the thick layer of gloss lathering Gin's lips. The watermelon flavor is quite pleasant though. 

It takes a couple of seconds for Akira to match the rhythm of her movements. One of his hands finds its way to her cheek, while her hand loosens in the fabric and snakes beneath his shirt.

He doesn't feel anything towards her at all, and yet... His body shudders at the contact, and he involuntarily lets out a low groan.

With his eyes closed, he can make out the shape of her smirk against his mouth.

There's light pressure on his bottom lip. His mind stutters with confusion at the unfamiliar sensation before he registers that she's biting him. And he's kind of into it.

She chews on him twice before pressing her mouth fully against his again, only for him to catch her bottom lip between his teeth.

It's feeble, to begin with. Experimental. A dip of his toes in the proverbial water.

After that first dip, however, what more is there to do than fully sink yourself in it?

Akira doesn't know what comes over him right then and there. His brain screeches with something primal, and the impulse empties out all other thoughts until there is only it. It floods him until he's caught in its current, and his body goes along with it.

His mouth fills with the taste of metal, and he recalls an earlier time from today.

"My name is Gin," she had said. "It means 'silver'."

A rough shove snaps him back to his senses. His teeth hadn't unclenched, but somehow, Gin had detached herself from him. She gags. Even from behind the hand that's covering her mouth, he can see rivulets of blood dripping down her chin onto her white top.

Her eyes are blasted wide with sheer terror.

Akira reaches two fingers into his mouth and pulls out a sizeable chunk of flesh, a trail of saliva following. He looks at it, then up at her, bewildered.

"W-wait..." He extends a hand towards her.

"Don't touch me!" The words rip from her throat with a visceral scream. She scrambles off of his bed and out of the room before he can react.

He hears the front door slam.

Dazed, he turns his head towards the body-length mirror next to the TV. He sees himself, with his mouth and chin covered in red, and it definitely isn't lipstick. There are dark splotches on his clothes too that are mercifully hard to see against the color black.

Slowly, he wipes a palm across his face and holds it out in front of him. Stares at it. Once more, he cannot contain his instinct to lick it once. Then twice. Then three times. Then again and again until his hand is clean.

His gaze falls to his other hand, still in possession of what had once been a part of Gin. 

A sense of shame washes over him. He squeezes his eyes shut as he nibbles at it with restraint.

But he can't keep it up for long.

His eyes fly open. He shoves the entire chunk into his mouth and chews it with fervor, with an unabashed need that he didn't know existed within him seconds earlier.

When he's swallowed, he quickly pushes his fingers in, sucking and lapping up every inch of blood he can, frantic, somehow paranoid that all of it will disappear before he's gotten a chance to paint his tongue in it.

Akira's never given his first kiss much thought. What he gets from it in return is the way it _tastes_. 

* * *

The Wilton Buffet is a vulture's nest that eyes the three of them like they are simultaneously prey yet unworthy to be eaten. Ann and Ryuji's eagerness to stack their plates high with dishes with names that sound alien on their tongues and their decidedly un-designer outfits do little to mask how out of place they are. _Whatever,_ Akira thinks as he takes up an empty plate. _They can stare. We've earned this reward._

That they defeated Kamoshida was a truth that his mind could not wrap itself around. He had felt it, how during the fight his veins thrummed with ecstasy and the way he gripped the hilt of his knife so tight that his hand ached and he felt so, so free under the mask. He had seen it too: Kamoshida's shadow disappeared into a hundred flecks of white light right before their eyes. He knows this, yet it already feels so impossibly far away already, like this experience is secondhand.

Maybe he just has trouble believing that he's basically turned into a goddamn superhero when he was his hometown's favorite supervillain a few months earlier. There came a point where he thought that maybe he did do it. Now it's maybe he _didn't_ do this.

"I prefer my fish raw, but grilled is good too!" Morgana remarks. Akira gets what he considers to be a good-sized portion onto the plate. The cat lets out a disappointed mewl, so he piles on extra.

All around him is Kamoshida's name. He's thankful that for once, it isn't him. He'd spent too long blistering under the spotlight back then, and his first weeks at Shujin were a rumor mill that mass-produced his story in a dozen different iterations. If he really thought about it, the hotel patrons were still talking about him anyway. They just didn't know it. 

Akira listens while he makes his way around the stations. He often overhears speculations on why Kamoshida suddenly confessed, and it's in these theories that he hides. He's the missing puzzle piece to their conversation. "Honestly," he remembers his father saying, "it's like wherever there's trouble, you're part of the picture."

He looks down at his plate and is satisfied, so he starts to head back to the table before Morgana interjects, "Hold on. You need to get a meat dish! This place is known for those."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot," he says and turns back around to obtain a singular piece of steak. 

"Not a big meat eater?"

"You could say that." He takes his seat.

"Man, this is great." The words have to fight with the massive bite of food currently in Ryuji's mouth, but he gets his point across.

"Don't forget to chew," Ann reminds him. She slices through a piece of cake covered in white frosting.

"Bet you didn't have anything this fancy back home, huh?" He looks to Akira.

"Oh, god, no. Pretty sure we only had one local inn." And the owner was kind of an asshole, Akira mentally adds. Who knew old ladies could be that spiteful?

"Speaking of that, where exactly are you from?" The inquiry comes from Ann.

He tosses the name out of his mouth like he wants to be rid of it as fast as possible. He tacks on at the end, "It's cool if you don't know it."

Ryuji perks up at that. "Wait, dude, isn't that where that girl got her lip bitten off by a stray dog? Scary stuff out there."

"Oh, I think I heard about that too." Ann puts her fork in her mouth. When she takes it out, it's clean of frosting. "They went on a hunt for the dog so they could put it down. They never found it. I hope it doesn't bite anyone anymore..."

"Dogs," Morgana growls.

"Yep, that was the place," Akira confirms. "The girl went to my school. I don't know what happened to her though."

This elicits a, "Woah," from all three of them in unison.

The conversation veers off into another direction. Likewise, Akira's mind drifts off someplace else, where the taste of tainted watermelon lipgloss is still fresh. He never saw her again after that night.

_Why did you lie about what happened?_

Why, why, why, why.

In the end, he gives up, exasperated.

_Just be glad she did._

* * *

Akira comes to a stop at the place where they started their run together and breathes deep, placing a hand over his chest to gauge how quickly his heart is beating. No more than three seconds later is Ryuji at his side. He bends over and clutches his knees, then he decides to acquaint himself with the grass, practically collapsing onto his back. His arms and legs are spread wide; it's as if he's claiming as much space as he can as his.

And it makes sense. If Akira had a secret spot of his own, he'd feel protective too. He was flattered that Ryuji had brought him, of all people, to this place, and it feels like he's sharing a piece of himself with lil' ol' Akira. It's intimate in a way that Akira has never really known until now. He hopes one day he can return the favor.

"Don't just stand there, man." Ryuji covers his eyes with his forearm. "Lie down next to me. You gotta be tired after that. And if not, er, lie down anyways. I'll feel better about myself."

"I'm clearly not tired at all," Akira says, even as he lets out a contented sigh when he lies down and lets his muscles go slack. Between the red track jacket and the white shirt underneath, the prick of grass against his skin is rendered a faraway sensation.

"That distance used to be so easy for me. Back when I was on the track team, I was about to go to nationals!" He laughs self-deprecatingly. "Now I suck. Hey, did you do any sports before you came to Shujin?"

"Street fights."

Ryuji jolts up to his elbows. "Seriously?"

"No." He chuckles. "Okay, actual answer: nope. I've been super uninvolved with school so far."

Honestly, it had baffled him how quickly people bought into the idea that a wiry boy with glasses too big for his face could commit assault. But not really.

"Well, that's understandable too. Considering how bullshit this school stuff can get anyways..."

"Yep. I think the past few weeks have taught me that things are the same everywhere."

"Ugh. For real." 

Akira turns his head to look at Ryuji, who's looking up at the sky. Sweat glistens on his face on his arms.

His arms, which he's seeing now in their full expanse for the first time. At school and as Skull, he's hugged by black fabric. Today, it's released its hold on him, and Akira's eyes trail down the pale skin. He hasn't been an athlete for some time, true, but there's still a considerable amount of muscle to him. 

He stamps out the impulse to reach out and pinch the skin between his fingers to see how taut it would be. For some reason, he can't shake the memory from the night of the Wilton Buffet, where he pressed his fork against his steak and watched, transfixed, as juices flowed out of it. He looks at Ryuji's sweat-kissed arm and thinks of the clear pool of liquid that formed beneath his steak.

Akira has to admit that he's a very good-looking guy. With his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, he looks as attractive as ever.

And he'd taste—

The thought consumes him before he can stop himself, and then his stomach is lurching with hunger and desire and disgust. 

He turns his back to Ryuji, sliding a hand over his mouth to mask the panicked gasp that escapes him.

Gin, he had known for only a day, yet she still haunts him. Because she was the only one he'd ever had. And because of her, he's tormented by dreams (nightmares?) of his teeth, blood-stained, and sinew and flesh making a home of his stomach until he's whole, whole, whole. Because of her, he's trained himself to not look at anyone for too long in class. Because of her, he wants.

But want doesn't always have a face. It's safer like that, right? To think of a heart as a thing that holds the blood. To strip it of all that it beats for: the smiles and fears that it made it quicken, the people and passions that were worth slowing down for.

Akira looks over his shoulder to see Ryuji. Ryuji, loud and big-hearted. Ryuji, his friend.

Want doesn't always have a body.

Sometimes it does.

It's more dangerous, that way.

* * *

Goro Akechi is fascinating in the way that a caged bird is. Akira watches, mildly vexed, from a seat towards the back as the detective is interviewed. He’s sitting up too straight. He keeps his hands folded in his lap; occasionally, when he does move them while talking, there’s a rehearsed kind of grace to it. He doesn’t smile, but he wears _pleasant_ like it’s the accessory tying his ensemble together. Akira figures that once this interview airs, one could go back and scroll through each frame and find that every single one could be a portrait hanging up in some rich man’s mansion.

He listens to Goro theorize all about him. Well, he doesn't know that part. He wonders how Goro, sitting up front and center, isolated from the audience by the checkerboard tiling underneath his feet, would feel knowing the elusive Phantom Thieves were sitting right in front of them. How he'd feel knowing that if he stepped onto the wooden flooring, he'd really be occupying the same space as them.

Akira wonders if he could sneak backstage. Maybe he'd catch them taking the batteries out of Goro Akechi or opening up the control panel on his back to do some routine maintenance.

All it is a passing impulse, however; any further contact with the detective trying to track them down should probably be avoided. Ann and Ryuji would certainly be against—

"Oh, it's you."

Akira cocks his head to the side to see Goro approaching him.

"I'm glad I found you. I wanted to thank you in person." Posture too perfect. "To paraphrase Hegel, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis..."

Doesn't the whole pleasant act get tiring? Does it ever get uncomfortable, like a striped tie pulled too tight?

"Do I look like someone who's read Hegel? Is it the glasses?" Akira asks.

Goro chuckles. "My apologies. What I mean is that your discussion was quite meaningful. Few people around me are so willing to speak their minds as freely as you did earlier."

"I'm glad that you thought so. You're pretty, uh, well-spoken and all, so I was nervous that I made a fool of myself. I don't usually talk like that," he admits, surprised that he's saying this out loud.

He raises an eyebrow. "Is that so? I feel that talking more with you could be fruitful. Would you be willing to share your thoughts with me again sometime?"

Interesting.

"Sure, if there's an opportunity to."

"I'm glad to hear it. I suppose a formal introduction is in order, then. I'm Goro Akechi." He reaches a hand out.

Akira takes it, looks down at their interlocked hands. He glances up as he says, "Akira Kurusu."

"We'll be in touch, then." Goro slides his hand away from Akira's a tad too slow for it to not linger as he walks away.

"That guy is trouble," Morgana's muffled voice comes from within his bag, "but we could learn a lot from him."

"Hm? Yeah, I agree."

From the corner of his eye, Akira can't help but watch him go.

* * *

A game of billiards wouldn't be Akira's first choice for an interrogation. Nevertheless, it's what Goro offers him the next time they encounter each other. On the walk, he's already imagining every single possible question Goro could throw at him and the dozens of ways he can deflect, divert, distract. His thoughts are only derailed slightly by intervals of wondering why a high schooler is carrying around a briefcase. Sure, he was a detective and all; he knew that, but a briefcase? It's a little much, honestly, and so archetypal that it feels uncanny.

Color him surprised when playing cat and mouse with the Phantom Thieves doesn't seem to be anywhere on Goro's agenda.

"I finally had some free time today, so I was hoping I could find someone to play with," he remarks.

"Oh." The word is out of him before he has a chance to think. "Not that that's a bad thing. I just thought we'd be meeting to talk about, you know, the Phantom Thieves case," he clarifies.

"I suppose we could, if you really wanted to." No. He really didn't want to. "But I have a policy of spending my free time meaningfully, and after all, you interest me greatly. So I don't think it will be unproductive to take a day, or a few, off from milking you for information."

"I'm down to play with you. I just wanted to make sure this wasn't a weird dream."

"I would question what I would be doing in your dreams, to begin with."

"...Detective stuff?"

That pulls a smile out of him. This one is different. This one oozes with a boyish earnestness that Akira thinks Goro keeps in an airtight container somewhere in the back of his mind. Yet he, of all people, managed to poke a hole in that container.

Well, what could he say? If there is anything Metaverse escapades have taught him, it's that he has a penchant for ending up in places that he shouldn't be. Just because he shouldn't be there, though, doesn't mean he won't enjoy the experience.

"Even dream me wouldn't be able to catch a break, huh?"

"Maybe he'd get a time-out for billiards."

"Will he win?"

"I dunno."

"Then," Goro's eyebrows quirk up in amusement, "I guess we should find out."

Akira wants to be surprised by how quickly he falls into Goro's rhythm, but he's too busy being caught up in how easy it is to be around him.

It shouldn't be. He should be watching him as closely as he was so he could be prepared in case this was a trap, not because he simply _can_. This is the same Goro who probably wanted to exchange Akira's mask for a pair of handcuffs.

_Remember who you're dealing with._ Instead, he remembers his hand in Goro's at the TV station. How he wanted to exchange his glove for nothing but bare skin and a map of lines that would've pressed against his own, and god, where could they have gone?

_Nowhere_ , he thinks, _except where we were already going._

This is the same boy who was going to trick him, who he was going to trick too.

But here, Goro, with his tie pulled loose because of how fucking into this game he was, looks like anyone else.

And here, Akira watches him, is pulled by him, unsure whether or not it's by loneliness or infatuation, certain that he doesn't want to find out the answer. 

So he only watches, and when he notices that Goro has switched hands, he says so.

"Huh," Goro says, with a mix of pleasure and surprise. "I'm... impressed. You've been studying me closely."

"Maybe," he replies, shrugging.

_Have you?_

* * *

Akira hadn't planned to go into the bathhouse with Goro. He merely wanted to show the other boy the way there, deposit him at the entrance, and then do absolutely anything other than sitting naked in a steaming pit of water with him. However, when the time came to part ways, the way decided to stay unparted.

All it took was a tilt of Goro's head and a, "Will you be joining me?" for him to fold. True, he enjoyed their last conversation a lot more than he likely should have. The difference is that they were both fully covered.

Akira's gotten adept at keeping his eyes far away from Ryuji's bare arms and flexed calves whenever they train together.

Here, he can't avoid looking.

But he can try.

Now, Akira keeps his back turned in the locker area as they both shed their clothing.

It's empty, except for the two of them.

He loosens the buttons on his white uniform top, and only when a draft hits the newly exposed patch of skin previously trapped in his collar does he realize that he's started sweating. 

Akira grabs his shirt by the back of the neck and pulls it over his head. The cold spreads across his back, leaving no spot untouched, like a voyeur's hungry gaze.

Behind him, he hears the rustle of fabric. In an otherwise silent room, the sound deafens him.

He whips his head to look over his shoulder in time to see Goro, turned away from him, shirtless, and unbuckling his belt.

This is... entirely wrong, his brain tells him even though it's committing the sight to memory. Evidently, Goro has been hiding a surprising amount of muscle underneath the stuffy blazers and rotation of patterned ties. 

He pulls his belt free. It falls to the floor with a clang that makes Akira tense, trying to control the surge of reckless energy that just now decided to make itself at home in his body.

The skin of Goro's back is unmarred, but maybe if he looked closer, he would find little moles or oddly-shaped birthmarks.

And he could. He could because there's nothing except a few feet and air between them. 

He could just reach out and grab and—

Guilt screws his head back on straight, forcing him to look at the wall once more. He makes quick work of the rest of his clothes. There’s a period of time where he’s completely exposed before he wraps a towel around his waist, but he hardly has the capacity to even notice, too busy lost in his own head, stumbling around himself, trying to find ways to shrink himself and _that_ part of him to the point where he can no longer notice it. He takes in a deep breath, and with it, pulls himself inward. 

He breathes out and imagines the part of him that wanted to jump Goro seconds earlier dispelling with it.

As if it’s that easy. As if he doesn’t know that they’d have to gut him and carve out his insides before he’s finally empty and at peace.

But he’ll take the semblance of peace over none at all any day.

This is good enough.

_I’m okay._ He latches onto the affirmation like a lifeline, ties it like it’s a rope around his waist with the other end tied around the sturdiest of trees and he’s about to go cliff-diving. _I’m okay. I’m okay—_

_Okay, now._

He takes the plunge.

And at the bottom, he finds himself face to face with Goro Akechi. Their eyes meet, briefly, before Goro’s are sweeping over his body instead. At first, he thinks he’s hallucinating, but no—he’s being looked at. Consumed, one inch at a time. For a second, he is the center of everything, not just immortalized, but actualized. Akira muses to himself about whether or not he’s on solid ground or walking on air.

Goro turns his head to the side. Akira remembers he’s just a boy, wingless and slow to wither but withering all the same.

“Shall we head in?” Now, he’s facing fully away from Akira.

“After you,” he offers.

Goro lets Akira meet his mother in memories. He lets Akira imagine a younger him, already sharp as a blade but still a child to the core, sitting in the waters and wondering if he’ll pass out before it’s safe to go home again. 

Akira lets Goro talk, and he only listens, while his mind grows dizzy with the heat and the thought of—

_They bare parts of themselves to you, and you wish to repay them with nothing but bared teeth?_

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you", huh?

* * *

They’re sitting in Leblanc when Goro appears, trapped within the confines of the old TV. Someone could tell Akira that he was at that news station for a photo op and not an interview, and he’d believe them. 

“That guy is insufferable.” Ryuji tips his head back, pulling an open notebook over his face. “He’s too effin’ charming to be real. I feel for ya, Akira, having to spend time with him and all for info.”

“I mean, I’ve only met him two or three times.” Technically a true statement; he had been texting Goro regularly ever since their first meeting. However, Ryuji said nothing about that, and therefore, they didn’t have to know. “He’s not that bad.”

“That’s good.” Across from him, Ann leans her elbows on the table. “He may be annoying, but at least he’s annoying _and_ useful.”

“Speaking of which, are your meetings going well?” Makoto asks.

“I haven’t gotten any top-secret information out of him yet if that’s what you’re asking. I figured I shouldn’t bring that up so quickly, since he’s a detective and all,” Akira explains.

“Then what do you even… _do_ with him?” Ann scrunches her nose.

“We literally just hang out and talk.” He unconsciously crosses his arms.

He shouldn’t be getting defensive over this. He knows, even as his mind erects several walls of security around his time spent with Goro. He’s aware that ultimately, Goro wants him to help catch The Phantom Thieves, and Akira needs to make sure that doesn’t happen. But at the moment, he hasn’t expected anything of Akira except his company. And that means something to him, no matter how trivial it is the grand scheme of who both of them are and the _people_ they were always meant to be.

“I dunno, man. He’s just so fake.” Ryuji grabs the remote and flips the channel.

Fake, huh? Akira went through the whole “throw away your false self and unmask yourself!” business and all, but he’s not sure if he’s past _fake._ Sometimes he looks in the bathroom mirror and feels a palpable disconnect between who he thinks should be reflected there and who actually is. It always sends his mind spiraling all the way back to his hometown and the mirror in his old bedroom.

_Maybe it is fake,_ he thinks, _but it’s mine._

* * *

For a detective, Goro isn’t very good at reading social cues. Though the rest of the Phantom Thieves have already made their exits, he remains standing in front of the table. Akira prays that he’ll be better at following directions once they’re in Sae’s palace. From where he’s leaning back against the booth, Akira waits for him to realize that it’s time to pack it up and go so he can screw around for the rest of the night.

Instead, he gets a, “So, it looks like they aren’t the biggest fans of me.”

“Nah, they all have posters of you on their walls, actually.” He digs his hands into his pockets.

Morgana pulls himself up onto all fours, his tail sticking straight up. “Akira…”

Akira tosses his head towards the door. The cat stares at him, incredulous, before resigning himself to padding out of Leblanc.

“Seriously, though, of course they’re a little skeptical. You’ve been haunting us for months, and now you’re basically blackmailing us into helping you steal Sae’s treasure. No one’s ever backed us into a corner like this. Obviously, they’d be very annoyed at that.”

Goro looks pleased with himself at that admission. “I see. I do hope they warm up to me eventually.”

“I’m sure most of them will. And you shouldn’t worry about the ones who don’t come around, anyway. I swear you worry too much about appearances.”

“Are you insinuating that you, the cool and collected leader of the _illustrious_ Phantom Thieves, don’t?” His serene expression, paired with the shrapnel in his voice, gives Akira emotional whiplash.

He stands up straight. “I’m not saying that. I just try not to let it bother me. Besides, why does it matter? We’re already helping you. What more do you want?”

“You may be right. But maybe I’m curious as to what you think.”

“About what?”

“Me,” he says, eyes trained and steady on Akira. “And me joining.”

_I wish you’d stayed separate,_ is his brain’s immediate response.

He should’ve known, though. He must’ve, at some point, but he simply… Forgot. Yeah, that was it. His mind purged itself of that reality long ago, where two of them are locked in an eternal game of cops and robbers. In place of it, he constructed a new one in its place. Here, they are prey nor predator, but birds of a feather. In this one, Akira is just a boy and Goro is too. They sit in jazz bars, rising with laughter, akin to the bubbles in their drinks ascending upwards for what they must think is forever. Goro doesn’t have to chase him, and Akira doesn’t have to be chased. The world sees them as just a pair of teenagers who could be mistaken for any two high schoolers in Tokyo.

Except Akira should’ve known better, and he did. Goro is smart and Akira is perhaps every bit as reckless as everyone wants him to be.

He can’t draw a line between Goro and The Phantom Thieves the same way that he can’t rid his present of his past. Everything bleeds, and everything bleeds together. He can’t untangle Goro from the Phantom Thieves or himself from the whole damn thing. It’s him who’s at the center of it all, half boy and half open wound.

_I wish you’d stay separate._

_I wish we were just normal._

_I wish we were just._

“I think,” Akira starts, stepping into his personal space, “that you’re an ass.”

He gives Goro’s shoulder a playful shove. This earns him an eye roll.

“I don’t know how to feel about you suddenly being a Phantom Thief. Just don’t try anything, okay?”

Goro laughs. Akira knows the sound means, _“Oh, I absolutely will.”_

But he definitely forgets about it.

* * *

Akira was doing just fine. He definitely doesn't feel like he's being held at gunpoint or the sneaking suspicion that he will be... soon. And if he does, it doesn't follow him around. At all. Tell him he has a huge burden on his shoulders, and he'll tell you he carries it like a weighted blanket. 

A weighted blanket, huh. God, he could really use one of those right now.

Curled into a ball on his side, he plunges himself into shut-eye darkness and hopes sleep will finally pull him under. A fan bellows in an already cold attic, and he shivers, but can't bring himself to get up to shut it off. To silence it.

He shifts to the opposite side, opens his eyes, and in the hollowness of the attic wonders if there is any real difference between opening and closing them.

He chooses to squeeze them shut again. Counts to one hundred once. And then twice, feeling his heartbeat slow with every successive beat as his mind does not. His thoughts move faster than a gunshot with no air resistance, never reaching a target or even considering having one, only whizzing on and on and on through the expanse.

Akira doesn't know what time it is, and yet, the dread is already gnawing at his insides. Maybe this time it'll succeed. Maybe this time its will rip straight through his stomach and feel the air for the first time. Maybe it will like the sensation and escape out from him. Maybe it will go back inside his body.

For now, however, it stays inside him, festering and frenetic. 

But he was doing fine. Just like, besides the forgotten assignments now lost to the black hole of his bag, school was fine. Just like the Phantom Thieves were learning to be fine with Goro. 

He's always had trouble sleeping, that's all. 

And when he's up too late and too many hours have passed since he last ate--

A growling noise.

He lurches to a sitting position, a hand flying to clutch his stomach.

And then, another one.

His hand twists in his shirt as a third rumble comes.

_Okay,_ he thinks. _Okay_.

He gets out of bed. Morgana isn't here tonight, so he doesn't have to be quiet, doesn't have to shrink into invisibility, but he inevitably sinks into soundless steps like clockwork. Downstairs, he sits in front of the fridge and quickly eats a plate of cold leftover curry. He takes no time to savor it and is slipping back under the covers in no time.

The whir of the fan can't compensate for the fact that Akira is utterly alone in Leblanc.

He spends a lot of time like that, anyway. Tonight is just... Well, he doesn't know. The Phantom Thieves have grown in size and in fame over the past few months. He's surrounded by people now, and yet. Yet. He can't help the emptiness that lurks within him, an emptiness that was once something, and that something spent so long alone inside of him that it collapsed in on itself.

It isn't that he doesn't love his friends. He does, more than he ever thought he was capable of. But it's the pain of knowing that there are things that he can't share with the people he loves, things that they will never understand, things that he can't blame them for not understanding. 

It is this truth that never leaves him. Could he say, then, that he was ever really alone?

Of course not. It was such a silly notion, after all.

He's surrounded by people. His teammates and confidants.

His friends. His...

The urge seizes him before he has a chance to finish the thought.

"No," he says, weakly, hands racing to cover the back of his head like he's preparing to be struck.

Akira tries to think about all the good times, like... That time they went to the beach! _That was fun_ , he thinks, smiling, recalling how everybody looked the most relaxed he'd ever seen them. The girls had been eager to get into the water first, and he remembers watching their backs as they ran towards the waves.

The image comes back to him, and suddenly, he's thinking about Makoto slicking Ann's back with sunscreen, and how it had reminded him of—

He reminisces about how enjoyable that one boat ride with Yusuke had been (even if it was actually for couples). 

Then instead of Yusuke and the boat, it's just Yusuke, and then it's only Yusuke's neck—

He squeezes himself tighter, horrified as every single memory is chewed up and spit out right in front of him.

Oh my god. The wave of nausea pulls him under. He feels like he's going to vomit, and then his heart is also beating against his skin frantically, demanding to be let out, and he feels all at once that he is trying to escape himself but can't. 

And now he's melting under the covers—is that fucking fan even working? Without moving the rest of his body, he uses one hand to throw the blanket off of him.

He shivers once, or so he thinks because he shivers once and doesn't stop. In the middle of his mind's systematic devouring of everything that has ever made his life good, he wonders how he can be shivering if he's still sweltering, and—

Oh. The tremors aren't shivering. He's an idiot.

"Hah," he wheezes out. 

And then he's laughing, and it's dark and he can't see anything, yet somehow his vision is blurring, and—

This, whatever this is, isn't swallowing him up. 

He's already been sitting in the belly of this beast, paralyzed in its stomach acid, slowly being digested, dissolved, disappearing.

"Fuck." It's weak. Then: "Fuck, fuck, fuck...!"

Something snaps in Akira, fearful of nothing in particular and enraged at specifically everything.

The side of his hand is in mouth, and he bites down. Hard.

Without slackening his jaw, he lets out a scream. He keeps biting down to stifle his screams and screaming because he's biting down.

His teeth finally sink into his flesh. His body writhes in rejection of this foreign object, but the foreign object is his body, and his body feels as if it is no longer his anymore.

He shifts onto his back, kicking his legs up and slamming his feet back down as his other hand grabs at his hair and at the air and at the sheets. He cringes in pain, inadvertently biting harder, shrieking, eyes welling with tears. Blood pools in his mouth so fast that it starts dribbling out of him, and his heart has grown so desperate to get out that he thinks he might die and escape along with it. He can't breathe without smelling metal, can't cry out without the uncertainty of whether or not it's from pain or pleasure. 

As his teeth dig into himself, his semblance of a mind wonders if this is violence or self-love. If this is release. If this is—

After Akira has spent an immeasurable amount of time sitting on the bathroom floor, dripping on the tiles, he bandages his hand and cleans the floor. After that, in the attic, he changes his clothes and the sheets and discards them with the lights off. After that, he is back where he began: in the fetal position under the covers, arms wrapped around himself, awake.

So instead, he calls Goro.

"Kurusu?" Goro sounds like he's been up. "It's quite late. I didn't expect you to be such a night owl..."

"Yeah," he replies. "Neither did I."

Silence.

"So... I assume there's something weighing on your mind."

"Do you ever feel like you'll never be free from yourself?" he blurts out.

For several moments, he only hears the fan.

It's drowned out by Goro's voice.

"All the time."

At the next Phantom Thieves meeting, Akira keeps his hands in his pockets, only removing them when no one was watching. 

He should've known that Goro Akechi catches everything.

* * *

"So, you aren't the best at reading the room, huh?" Akira spares a glance at Goro, sitting cross-legged on his couch, a glance as he picks up an empty bag of chips off the table and tosses it into the trash. This meeting was civil. That's the best he could ask for, really.

"Would you like me to leave?" Goro probably knows what Akira wants to say.

"I didn't say that. I just figured you'd also want to head home too." He slips his jacket off of his shoulders and lazily throws it onto the bed. 

"Hardly. It's been quite boring, as of late. Talking to you is usually an enjoyable way to pass the time."

Akira is glad he's turned away from Goro at the moment, or else the brunette would see him momentarily malfunction.

"Glad my company isn't the worst thing in the world."

"Far from it. It's nice to have someone to simply spend time with, outside of... all that's happening." Goro gets up. "Though I must confess that I do have a bit of an ulterior motive."

He strides towards Akira with purpose.

It isn't until Goro is close enough that he notices the wall somehow closed in on him.

"Uhhh... What is going on?" He presses himself further into the wall. Unfortunately, he doesn't sink into it as he had hoped.

"Nothing, really." There's no malice in his voice or his face, only curiosity. "There was something I was wondering. About you."

"Which is?" Even in this compromising position, he can't seem to be remotely scared. A thousand thoughts rush in all at once, and not one of them is concerned about his safety. Even if, after all, Goro Akechi is...

Looking good. His view is filled completely by the vision of him, a smart mouth on a pretty face on a body that he wants to commit to memory with all five of his currently overloaded senses. Goro's face is unblemished, so unlike his own; Akira may or may not have grown out his hair to cover the dark acne scars on his forehead and temples. 

Goro's breath tickles his face. There are a number of things Akira wants to do then. Want. The feeling is a dull pang in his chest.

"I'm not sure how to phrase this. I think it would be better if I tested my hypothesis."

"You're being... cryptic." The logical part of himself puts a muzzle on the other part that wants so much that it needs.

"I suppose I will have to make you understand." Goro lifts one closed fist up.

A flick of his wrist.

A glint of silver.

"Akechi, what the hell?" In one quick motion, he shoves Goro backward. "I don't know what's going on, but this isn't funny."

Now there's some distance between them. The knife stays clasped in his hand.

_This shouldn't be happening!_ Akira's brain finally begins to comprehend the situation at hand. _At least, not now._

"I didn't intend for it to be comedic." He brings his free hand up to his mouth, bites down onto one of the fingers of his gloves, and pulls. 

The leather slides free. He lets the glove fall from his mouth.

Akira should stop this. Somehow.

But he's transfixed; the glove plops to the ground in the most mundane way possible, and yet—

He leans forward, just a little, when Goro holds the knife up to his exposed palm.

He needs to stop... whatever this is. They were basically the same height, and Akira's toned up a lot in the past few months. With the element of surprise, he could definitely overwhelm Goro. Yeah, he could do it. He could make all of this come to a screeching halt right now.

Except he isn't sure what this is, exactly. Akira had thought that he'd be put out of his misery tonight; instead, it seems like Goro is turning the knife on himself. Still, there was a chance he was only waiting. He didn't know if this was some deranged murder-suicide plot, which The Phantom Thieves definitely didn't anticipate, or if this was simply a dream. 

(In the case of the latter, well, he'd have many questions for himself.)

Either way, he didn't have a clue, and there was such an odd kick he got out of it. This anticipation tugs him forward, and unconsciously, he takes a step.

Goro's hand moves.

Akira's breath catches in his throat.

With one swift motion that is absolutely hypnotic, he slices open his own hand, and Akira hurls the air out of himself with a sharp exhale.

The cut wells with blood. The way it traverses down his wrist and seeps into his jacket is tantalizing—like a woman taking her sweet time rolling down a fishnet stocking.

"You want this." Though it's a statement, there's a question behind it, a seed of doubt that the functional part of Akira is all too eager to nurture.

He gulps. "I have no idea what is going right now."

That's what he says; admittedly, he's replaying the scene of seconds earlier over and over.

Oh, how Goro's flesh had bloomed for him, how it had opened like a spring flower, a thing of beauty in need of a beholder, how—

How fucked up everything was, somehow. Goro was standing here, bleeding for him, and in time Akira would (cognitively) do the same for him. 

How fucked up it was that Goro was bleeding for him, and Akira realizes that he may have thought about this. A lot. 

Goro was bleeding out for him, becoming emptier by the second, while Akira was filled with... peace. Peace with himself for being at peace right now. Peace with Goro and how every second he spent with Akira was also spent wanting to put a bullet in his skull. Peace with the both of them and the violence of their loneliness, this visceral longing, this trauma of being.

Maybe, that was them, in the end: already halfway cut and thinking freedom is slicing yourself all the way open.

Goro drops his hand to his side. Droplets of blood drip onto the floorboards. "I don't know how to make it clearer to you." There's a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Akira backs away from the edge of epiphany, suddenly disgusted with the prospect of how it may look on the other side. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

His shoulders sag. Then he starts towards Akira, whose heart rate rapidly accelerates as he realizes that Goro is very much still holding a knife and he forfeited any chance of stopping him earlier. _This is so fucked._

He squeezes his eyes shut. He's going to die. He was definitely going to die, sick with a desire that he's been begging to be rid of, and now it was going to follow him to death.

Akira braces himself for the pain.

It never comes. In its place arrives a warm sensation on his cheek.

When he opens his eyes, he realizes that it's a hand.

"I should've known better," Goro muses. He runs his bloody thumb along Akira's bottom lip.

This time, fear isn't the reason why his heart quickens. He relaxes into the touch.

As soon as he does, Goro gradually drags his hand down his cheek, making sure he's marking Akira.

Then his hand is entirely gone, and Akira is entirely cold.

"I should take my leave now." He musters up a tiny smile before turning away. He picks his glove off the floor and puts it back on; by now, the bleeding has slowed.

Akira can't help but watch him go.

Alone in the attic, he swipes two fingers across his wet cheek.

He presses them against his lips and thinks that it's his second kiss.

It's the closest he lets himself get to tasting Goro Akechi. 

* * *

He knows this could be a huge mistake. Their plan was already in place. All things had been decided in order for him to live. This scheme was foolproof, really.

But Akira Kurusu was no ordinary fool. 

That's why when Goro asks him to meet him on a secluded rooftop somewhere in Tokyo, he agrees, fully aware that this could go wrong in so many ways but ignoring every single one in favor of the one timeline where he comes out of it completely fine.

He pushes the door to the roof open and finds the boy standing at the edge, back turned to him. The space is enclosed by a chain-link fence, so the sunset streams only through the gaps, like it's reaching to touch Goro but can't quite make it.

The door falls closed.

Goro turns his head to look back at him; he has a cigarette pinched between two of his fingers. The winter ruffles his hair and disperses the steady rise of smoke.

"You smoke," he observes, hands lodged deep in his pockets as he approaches.

"You came." Goro says it like it's Akira's bad habit.

It might as well be.

"Because you wanted to talk to me."

"You didn't have to," even though he knows Akira always has to.

"So? What'd you call me all the way out here for?"

He lets out a tired sigh. "God. I can't stand you."

The cigarette falls from Goro's fingers. He crushes it underneath his shoe.

"Um. What?" His voice stays steady, but internally, he honestly wishes he could've taken a real bullet instead of this metaphorical bullshit.

"I can't stand you," he repeats, scoffing. "Look at you. I invite you to this place out of the blue, and now you're standing in front of me, with your hands in your pockets and that nonchalant expression that you always have. Like nothing means anything to you. Looking at you is exhausting." 

Both his teeth and his fists clench; he lets Goro see neither. 

"You said, back then, that we were similar." He shakes his head. "I thought so too. Maybe I thought wrong. How could I be similar to someone who's as fucking cowardly as you? It's as if you want everyone to think you can stare just about anything in the face!"

_But it pains you to think about being stared at._

Akira's biting the inside of his cheek now, thinking about how he shouldn't take this lying down. Except it's all he knows how to do. How could he possibly unlearn himself now? He's spent the past few months reinventing other people, and yet, he still asks himself: How could be what he is not? How can something be healed when it was wounded by design? Like a fucked up painting, or a pot on display, shattered purposefully, deliberately, artistically. Here, the appeal lies not in speculating why these pieces were the way they were, but in the spectacle of them being unable to answer. It was knowing that you could impose any narrative you wanted on them, and they wouldn't tell you _no, that's not right, this is who I really am._

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Goro juts his chin out. "Would you say anything if I told you I wanted you to? If I, like everyone else, told you you'd be helping me if you did, would you start cursing me out right now?"

He looks at the ground, seized by the utterly nonsensical notion that Goro would cease to exist if he simply didn't look.

"Who would've known?" A huff. "The esteemed leader of the Phantom Thieves is everybody's bitch on his off days."

And something within Akira, at that very moment, splits open and his jaw was clenching and his head snapped back up and he was seeing scarlet and the prettiest face he's ever happened upon in his life. For a second, he felt like everything in him was being pulled loose, overflowing and horridly free.

Goro was looking at him, his eyes teetering between giving up and a morbid flicker of hope.

"Akechi," Akira says. His voice was strained, struggling to hold himself together when he had nothing but himself to keep him grounded. He didn't know how to be his own shoulder to cry on without feeling like he was contorting his body into grotesque origami, wasn't sure how to feel rage and sorrow and desire without embodying them. So when the next words come out, he betrays nothing. "That's enough. Is that all?" 

The noise he makes is half-sobbing, half-laughter. "No. I'm not quite finished yet."

"Well, then." He's sure that his hands must be drowning in his sweat now, in the middle of winter. "Get on with it."

"It would be my pleasure." Goro practically spits out the words, mixed in with a healthy dose of venom, and Akira knows he's grown tired of playing nice because, yes, up until that point had Goro Akechi been polite.

Still, he didn't expect the distance between them to close so immediately, nor did he anticipate the fist swinging at him and making a landing pad of his right cheek.

Akira staggers back without falling. His glasses hit the ground with a hollow clink.

"What the fuck?" This time, he can't mask the trembling in his voice. His hand closes over where he'd been struck seconds before. "What the fuck?"

"Oh? Could you, perhaps, be angry at me right now?" Goro flexes his hand. "What, exactly, are you going to do about it?"

Slumped over, his shoulders heave with his deep breaths, as he tries to hold onto the last bit of his self-control. "Akechi."

His face morphs from impatience and annoyance to pissed off in the span of a single moment. _"Come on!"_

Akira lets go.

He lets his body fling itself at the brunette, sending them both toppling to the ground. Goro's back hits the concrete with a dull thud, and if it hurts, he doesn't show it while he's looking up at Akira straddling him with his clammy hands vice gripping the brunette's collar.

The leader of the Phantom Thieves is reduced to short, shallow breaths that sometimes come out as wheezes and an immense trembling.

So he doesn't talk. 

Neither does the boy below him. 

"Fuck you," Akira curses, finally. "Fuck you."

"You—" In a fit of frustration, he throws him back against the ground and immediately feels guilty. His mind tells him to apologize, and he tells it that he isn't going to. "Don't you dare talk to me like that. I won't take it. Not from you. Not if it's you, out of everyone else in the world."

"Why?" 

"Because—" _Because I want to love you and I don't know how. Because you make it hard and I make it hard too and we're not easy, but always, it feels easy, with you_. "Because," stutters out of his mouth.

"It's me?" 

"It's you." He laughs with his whole body, in all its violence, all its aching.

Goro sneers. "Didn't know the strong and mighty Joker would be so weak for—"

Akira slaps him across the face. Goro's eyes widen. He's stunned into silence.

"Jesus, Akechi. I wish you would shut up right now." He presses him further into the concrete. "You have no right saying all of that when you... you..."

His jaw tightens before continuing, "You're the worst, out of everyone. Don't fucking patronize me. You front to the entire goddamn world with your little detective heartthrob act! You wanna know what I thought of you, the first time that I saw you? Hm? I pitied you." 

His hands close around Akira's wrist. "Kurusu," he warns, and in his name, he feels all of Goro's fury, slowly ripping it apart.

"Oh, come on. Give me a break!" He pulls Goro back up, their faces so close that Akira is yelling right in his face. "Don't you dare give me that 'Kurusu' shit! You don't scare me, Akechi. You aren't going to belittle me over this. Over the fact that I just want to be loved. And you do too. You do too. So don't... Don't try and tell me that we're different! Don't try and tell me that it hasn't been you and me. _All this fucking time!”_

Goro is shaking now. But he doesn't say anything. He just looks at the raven-haired boy with a quiet rage that Akira thinks he recognizes somewhere and can't quite place.

"What?" Akira demands, hysterical. "You're going to pussy out once I actually fight back? I'm the spineless one, now?" 

The next instance, pain pulses through his back.

Goro is on top of him with his hands around Akira's throat, who still manages to choke out, "You're quiet."

Goro's face dives towards his cheek. When he makes contact, it's not with lips, but with teeth and a hesitation that is nowhere to be found. 

He sinks so deeply into his flesh that his top and bottom teeth meet each other once again. Akira writhes and writhes and shrieks, begging to escape.

His wish is granted. Goro rolls off of him.

But not until after his head snaps to the side, and Akira screeches as a piece of him is torn away. He feels pain, and he feels loss, and he lifts a hand to his face and feels blood that is wholly his own.

Akira sits up. He runs his fingers over the cavity left on his face. It's painful, and it's still weeping blood, and it feels so, so raw and wrong.

And he can't stop touching it. It hurts so fucking much, and he can't stop letting it hurt, can't stop letting himself feel it, feel this with every inch of himself.

He looks up. Goro is standing away from him. His hair is disheveled, and that stupid gray jacket he always wears is dotted with crimson blotches. Blood drips from his mouth.

Akira meets his eyes. There's something animalistic buzzing through them. However, the next string of actions is a study in the slow.

Goro chews once. Twice. Over and over and over, dissecting Akira to his smallest bits and then doing it again.

Eventually:

he swallows.

Akira's breath hitches, and then his eyes widen. Not in shock, nor in disbelief or fear, but in—

Recognition.

“It’s you,” Akira whispers.

Goro’s response comes out raspy. It’s wild, in a way Akira has never seen before. It feels like he’s known it, always.

“It’s me.”

* * *

The first love is widely considered to be a staple milestone of adolescence. Many teenagers have, at the very least, an idea of what falling in love will be like. Personally, Akira's never given the notion much thought. For the record, though, he still doesn't think he's loved someone yet. 

But sitting cross-legged in the attic of Leblanc with Goro Akechi across from him, he thinks he feels something close to it. He believes that, maybe one day, he will.

Goro soaks the cotton ball in disinfectant. Even the slightest touch of it against Akira's cheek is enough to make him recoil and snap his eyes shut.

He sucks in a sharp breath, bracing himself, and the next time the sensation comes, he stays still. 

He watches, instead. Akira watches Goro: gaze lowered, gloves off, gentle as he cleans the wound. When he's finished, he reaches for the hydrocolloid dressing from the first aid kit next to him. 

He slides a hand under Akira's chin and turns his head so he can apply the dressing, and then his hands are gone.

Goro deflates, shoulders slumped and back hunched. He looks down at the ground.

_So imperfect_. Akira smiles and tilts his chin upwards towards him.

Their eyes meet. They see each other. They let each other be the center of all things.

He sees Goro and not violence. He sees Goro and not a gutting. He sees Goro, and sees himself in Goro, and in both of them he sees quiet. What was that thing that Hegel said? Right—no advancement without thesis and antithesis.

Akira leans forward and lifts the other's hand. He brings two of Goro's fingers to his lips and keeps them pressed there, and at least at that moment, he does not find himself wishing for anything more.

_I am here_ , he thinks, and he believes it.

_We have been—_

always.

* * *

_“You’re a monster. But so am I—which is why I can’t turn away from you.”_

_\- Ocean Vuong, **On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous** _

**Author's Note:**

> when people talk about feral akechi i don’t think this is what they meant
> 
> i don’t really know what happens to them after this ending, honestly. but i just know i didn’t write this w the intention of making akira and goro bad people, or evil, or villains. so take of that what you will! i didn't really have any one thing in particular in mind for what exactly cannibalism is a metaphor for; i think it could be a range of things, or maybe one specific thing, or maybe nothing at all, to different people. i'd really love to hear thoughts in the comment sections about that!!
> 
> i know this maybe isn't the type of fic that is Usual for this tag, so if u made it thru the end i really really appreciate u, thank u so much!! this was a wonderful piece of work to write and i hope u all enjoyed it.
> 
> come talk to me on twitter @goblingoro. i literally don't use it that much bc i have no one to talk to but i'd love to talk to ppl abt this fic or persona or whatever in general. also tweeting abt this so if u enjoyed it consider RTing <3


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